Dear Parents and Carers,

Despite the shorter week, the children have managed to engage with lots of new and interesting topics.

In Literacy we have been learning about persuasive writing and the various features of these texts, as well as gathering ideas for a balanced argument about a range of topics such as whether school uniform should be worn and whether or not young children should have to do homework or chores around the house, subjects of which provoked heated debate around the classrooms. We finished for the week with a glance at the differences between formal and informal language. Next week, we will be preparing for our own debates on a given topic by gathering information and writing notes, considering the pros and cons of both the topic at hand as well as the strengths of our arguments.

Our focus in Maths has been on degrees and angles. The children have shown a good understanding of degrees and turning clockwise and anti-clockwise, and have been able to classify and estimate acute, obtuse and right angles. Next week we will be drawing lines and angles accurately before measuring angles using a protractor.

Our most important afternoon session this week came in the form of our Topic lesson, where we learnt about VE Day – what it is, its historical importance and why it is crucial to remember this event in today’s world. We spoke about some of the more well-known names from the war and touched on how Britain began to recover from years of air raids and food rationing.

We have also made progress in our other afternoon lessons. There has been some revision of the difference between forehand and backhand shots in tennis and experiments on how to brighten a bulb using a battery and wires in Science. Art has seen us study the colourful and creative works of Chila Kumari Singh Burman and the children have also practised uploading, copying and pasting images to their blogs. We concluded the week with a discussion on emotions and how they change, and will continue to do so, over the coming years in PSHE.

A couple of reminders to finish:

• The other half of class 5TA will attend forest camp next week on Friday 16th May. Please let us know if you have not received an email about this.
• Class 5RF/JM will attend Forest Camp on Friday 23rd May and Friday 6th June. You will receive an email closer to these dates informing you which day your child will be attending.
• Our Summer Fair is taking place on Saturday 28th June from 12pm-3pm. If you can help with this or would like to run a stall, you can find further details in this week’s school newsletter.

Have a good weekend,

The Y5 Team